


hell itself breathes out

by possibilityleft



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drug Addiction, Gen, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 22:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2484896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing worse than coming down off the drugs was turning human again. <em>Sherlock Holmes is nothing like she expected.  She revises her mental estimation of him.  He would be lean, coyote-like,  in his wolf form, with piercing orange eyes.  His real eyes take a quick tabulation of her and he finds her wanting.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	hell itself breathes out

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Spook Me 2014. I rated this Teen for the themes of drug addiction and violence, but there isn't really anything very explicit.

The phone rings three times, shrilly, before Joan picks up. The person on the other end is trying hard to remain calm, and not quite succeeding. He's broken out, the woman says, we're not sure why, be careful.

Joan is still coming down the high of her run and it takes a moment before she comprehends the warning. When she does she hurries to the brownstone, only pausing to put on her coat, the one with the silver in the pockets. The woman who is unexpectedly emerging from the house doesn't bother to say hello. Joan whirls and stares, checking for blood or pain in her stride, but she finds only annoyance. She runs her thumb across a little coin, warm from her body heat. Then she goes in.

Sherlock Holmes is nothing like she expected. She revises her mental estimation of him. He would be lean, coyote-like, in his wolf form, with piercing orange eyes. His real eyes take a quick tabulation of her and he finds her wanting.

"You were never an addict yourself," he says. It is not a question, and not something that she usually brings up unless the client asks her about her past. She nods. His lip curls.

"Pity," he says, "the Asian wolves are quite beautiful. At least at first. As I was saying, Ms. Watson, there is no real need for your service."

Joan catches his chin in her fingers and does not relent until he meets her eyes. She stares until he looks away, a whine emerging from his throat.

"Your father hired me," she says.

"And what, I'm supposed to show you my throat because of that? The man can't own me from across the ocean," he says with a huff.

"I'm here to help," she says. "Quit growling."

To her surprise, he does.

*

He paces the living room at night. At first she tries to stay up with him, knowing this is a dangerous time for him. Occasionally she hears the howling on the street, and sometimes it is terrifyingly close. Sometimes she hears shots afterwards.

He has a way of moving that suggests that he is uncomfortable in his skin. He scratches at his wrists and when he sleeps, he curls into a ball. He eats too much meat for someone in recovery. She becomes quite familiar with his tattoos since he often forgets to wear a shirt. The 26.2 catches her eye. She tries to get him to go running with her, to establish the kind of patterns that you need when you're living without heroin and on two feet all of the time. Instead, he gets a job with the police department.

She thinks she might lose him, the first time they stand over a body that is half animal and half human and entirely dead. She pulls a little silver ball from her pocket and offers it to him. He takes it, but only for a moment. He wings it across the room into the trash can in the bathroom en-suite. There are no burn marks on his hands, she's relieved to see when she catches up with him a few minutes later and forces him to show her.

"It smelled bad in there," he admits, reluctantly. She nods.

*

"And then it was every night. I'd wake up in a pool of blood not knowing what I'd killed or how much I'd paid for the drugs. I didn't have any money to eat. The wolf ate. There aren't any stray cats on my block anymore."

The woman speaking looks briefly like she might be sick. Joan bites her lip in sympathy and glances over at Sherlock. His eyes are half-lidded with boredom. She bares her teeth at him. He rolls his eyes but faces front. The woman has stopped talking and started crying. The facilitator rises and starts clapping.

"Thank you, Sara. Who's next? Sherlock, would you like to speak?" 

"No," Sherlock says, shortly. He should talk to someone -- the group, Joan, a psychiatrist, anyone. She's been staying with him for two weeks and she still hardly knows anything about him. Most of her clients have opened up by now and shared their stories, their desperation to stay clean and human. Joan knows what is in Sherlock's file. He has a father. He had a brother, once. He has killed someone. There are no details about that, but it is in the file.

The facilitator doesn't protest his refusal. She picks someone else to stand at the front and talk. Joan is silent until the meeting ends.

*

Irene is a were-fox, fur as golden as her hair. She is the biggest fox that Joan has ever seen. She makes pleasant inquisitive notices after changing, before attempting to tear out Sherlock's throat. They have trapped her here in this hospital room, but they might not get to keep her.

Marcus has two silver bullets and he catches Irene in the flank. It is enough for someone to produce the cuffs and the tranquilizer. Joan is holding Sherlock's skin shut, coated in slick red blood and screaming for backup. They are in a hospital, there is no better place. She lets him go reluctantly into the hands of the responders. He survives, but only barely.

He doesn't break out of the hospital when they finally let him go. She picks up him in her car and watches him in the rearview mirror. His face is white and taut with strain. The painkillers they can provide are limited, given his struggles with addiction. They are little better than Tylenol, in her professional opinion. Still, he has to be coaxed into taking them when they get home. She is glad when he falls asleep on the couch.

Her eyes feel like sandpaper. She goes up to her bedroom and falls asleep without taking her dirty clothes off, even though she fully intended to. She wakes suddenly in the middle of the night. The moon is shining brightly through her window, silvering the darkness. There is something large walking down the hall on four feet.

Joan's coat is downstairs. She hasn't put anything silver into the pockets for months, which is a bit of a shame considering Irene's appearance. She hasn't felt like she needed it. She has nothing to protect herself with. She draws the covers up around herself, uselessly.

A large wolf nudges the half-closed door open. He is nothing like Joan imagined. His shoulders are broad and powerful. He looks like he belongs in this shape, a huge shaggy gray animal bisected by the moonlight. His paws are as big as dinnerplates, she thinks inanely, the exact ones they have in their cupboard downstairs, the four that actually match.

He is growling under his breath. Joan doesn't move, barely breathes. She knows that this tactic is useless. He can smell her. He knows she's here.

There is a testing weight on the bed. Joan can't help but scrabble back against the headboard as the wolf climbs onto the foot of her bed. She opens her mouth to scream, but can't. She is lost in his sharp green eyes. He is standing over her, all animal heat and musky smell. He is looking straight at her.

They stare at each other for thirty seconds that feels like an hour. Then he sits down on his haunches, the parody of an inquisitive dog. After a moment, he puts his head on his front paws. She can feel his breath on her knee.

"Oh, Sherlock," she says gently. She always thinks it is a good idea to remind them of themselves as much as possible, to help them hold onto reality. He whines. Outside, a wolf howls. His ears prick up, his body tenses, but after a moment, he stops. He jumps down off the bed.

He curls up at the foot there, tucking his tail over his nose, and that's where she finds him in the morning, naked and snoring a little with his head supported on his hands. She hasn't slept. She has waited for the morning, not daring to get up from the bed. When he senses her standing over him, he wakes, and there is only shame in his eyes.

"I had some... just in case... in a book in the library," he says. "My only cache, I promise. And it is all gone. I flushed most of it down the toilet."

If he is relapsing, Joan knows that the best place for him is rehab. The pound. Whatever he wants to call it, they have people to help.

She leans down and offers him a hand to help him up.


End file.
